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LOS ANGELES - Film star Tom Cruise has teamed up with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. to resurrect United Artists, the movie studio founded 87 years ago by screen legends Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and others, MGM said on Thursday.
The partnership, under which Cruise would star in and produce films for UA with his production partner, Paula Wagner, comes about two months after the bitter end of Cruise's 14-year production deal with Paramount Pictures. Wagner will serve as chief executive of the United Artists.
Cruise and Wagner will exercise control over United Artists' production slate, from development to the ability to commit financial resources to new pictures, MGM said in a statement announcing the deal. The new UA will be located in Los Angeles.
Cruise, whose latest film, Paramount's Mission: Impossible III, grossed more than US$390 million ($578 million) worldwide, will still be available to appear in movies for other studios under the new deal.
The reconstituted UA will start out with a production slate of about four films a year, MGM said.
"The talent friendly studio will be reborn as a place where producers, writers, directors and actors can thrive in a creative environment," MGM said in the statement.
United Artists was founded in 1919 by actors Chaplin, Pickford and Fairbanks and pioneering director D.W. Griffith. UA secured distribution rights to films released by MGM in 1973 and was purchased outright by MGM eight years later.
MGM's film library contains over 1,200 titles, including such classics as Midnight Cowboy, Some Like It Hot, Annie Hall, and the Rocky and Pink Panther movies. It also includes Rain Man, which co-starred Cruise and earned four Academy Awards, including the Oscar for best picture.
- REUTERS
